The airport is one of two managed and operated by Aéroports de Montréal (ADM) ; the other being Montréal–Mirabel northwest of Montreal, which was initially intended to replace the one in Dorval but now deals almost solely with cargo.

Trudeau is the busiest airport in the province of Quebec and the third-busiest airport in Canada by both passenger traffic and aircraft movements, with 19.42 million passengers and 240,159 movements in 2018. It is one of eight Canadian airports with United States border preclearance and is one of the main gateways into Canada with 12.2 million or 63% of its passengers being on non-domestic flights, the highest proportion amongst Canada's airports during 2018. It is one of four Air Canada hubs and, in that capacity, serves mainly Quebec, the Atlantic Provinces and Eastern Ontario. On an average day, 53,000 passengers transit through Montréal-Trudeau.